“They must be the passage-birds flying seaward!” cried the boy, who had read a little about them, and had a great talent for putting two and two together and finding out all he could. “Oh, how I should like to see them quite close, and to know where they come from and whither they are going! How I wish I knew everything in all the world!” A silly speech for even an “examining” little boy to make; because, as we grow older, the more we know the more we find out there is to know. And Prince Dolor blushed when he had said it, and hoped nobody had heard him. Apparently somebody had, however; for the cloak gave a sudden bound forward, and presently he found himself high in the air, in the very middle of that band of aerial travelers, who had mo magic cloak to travel on--nothing except their wings. Yet there they were, making their fearless way through the sky. Prince Dolor looked at them as one after the other they glided past him; and they looked at him--those pretty swallows, with their changing necks and bright eyes--as if wondering to meet in mid-air such an extraordinary sort of bird. “Oh, I wish I were going with you, you lovely creatures! I'm getting so tired of this dull plain, and the dreary and lonely tower. I do so want to see the world! Pretty swallows, dear swallows! tell me what it looks like--the beautiful, wonderful world!” But the swallows flew past him--steadily, slowly pursuing their course as if inside each little head had been a mariner's compass, to guide them safe over land and sea, direct to the place where they wished to go. The boy looked after them with envy. For a long time he followed with his eyes the faint, wavy black line as it floated away, sometimes changing its curves a little, but never deviating from its settled course, till it vanished entirely out of sight. Then he settled himself down in the center of the cloak, feeling quite sad and lonely. “I think I'll go home,” said he, and repeated his “Abracadabra, tum tum ti!” with a rather heavy heart. The more he had, the more he wanted; and it is not always one can have everything one wants--at least, at the exact minute one craves for it; not even though one is a prince, and has a powerful and beneficent godmother. He did not like to vex her by calling for her and telling her how unhappy he was, in spite of all her goodness; so he just kept his trouble to himself, went back to his lonely tower, and spent three days in silent melancholy, without even attempting another journey on his traveling-cloak. CHAPTER VI The fourth day it happened that the deaf-mute paid his accustomed visit, after which Prince Dolor's spirits rose. They always did when he got the new books which, just to relieve his conscience, the King of Nomansland regularly sent to his nephew; with many new toys also, though the latter were disregarded now.